LITMIR.BIZ

Four hundred years since its publication, Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote continues to inspire and to challenge its readers. The universal and timeless appeal of the novel, however, has distanced its hero from its author and its author from his own life and the time in which he lived. The discussion of the novel’s Catholic identity, therefore, is based on a reading that returns Cervantes’s hero to Cervantes’s text and Cervantes to the events that most shaped his life. The authors and texts McGrath cites, as well as his arguments and interpretations, are mediated by his religious sensibility. Consequently, he proposes that his study represents one way of interpreting Don Quixote and acts as a complement to other approaches. It is McGrath’s assertion that the religiosity and spirituality of Cervantes’s masterpiece illustrate that Don Quixote is inseparable from the teachings of Catholic orthodoxy. Furthermore, he argues that Cervantes’s spirituality is as diverse as early modern Catholicism. McGrath does not believe that the novel is primarily a religious or even a serious text, and he considers his arguments through the lens of Cervantine irony, satire, and multiperspectivism. As a Roman Catholic who is a Hispanist, McGrath proposes to reclaim Cervantes’s Catholicity from the interpretive tradition that ascribes a predominantly Erasmian reading of the novel. When the totality of biographical and sociohistorical events and influences that shaped Cervantes’s religiosity are considered, the result is a new appreciation of the novel’s moral didactic and spiritual orientation.

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Regardant les questions de témoignage, de confession, de traumatisme, de sexualité et de violence dans les œuvres (semi-)autobiographiques, ce livre explore la co-construction d’identités personnelles et collectives par des femmes écrivains à l’ère des médias et de l’autoreprésentation. À une époque où la littérature française est souvent accusée d'être égocentrique et trop narcissique, Mercédès Baillargeon avance que l’autofiction des femmes a été reçue avec controverse depuis le tournant du millénaire parce qu’elle perturbe les idées reçues à propos des identités nationale, de genre et de race, et parce qu’elle questionne la distinction entre fiction et autobiographie. En effet, ces écrivaines se distinguent du reste de la production française actuelle, car elles cultivent une relation particulièrement tumultueuse avec leur public, à cause de la nature très personnelle, mais également politique de leurs textes semi-autobiographiques et à cause de leurs « performances » comme personnalité publique dans les médias. On y examine donc simultanément la façon dont les médias stigmatisent ces écrivaines ainsi que la manière dont ces dernières manipulent la culture médiatique comme une extension de leur œuvre littéraire. Ce livre analyse ainsi simultanément les implications textuelles et sociopolitiques qui sous-tendent la (dé)construction du sujet autofictionnel, et en particulier la façon dont ces écrivains se redéfinissent constamment à travers la performance rendue possible par les médias et la technologie. De plus, ce travail soulève des questions importantes par rapport à la relation complexe qu’entretiennent les médias avec les femmes écrivains, en particulier celles qui discutent ouvertement de traumatisme, de sexualité et de violence, et qui remettent également en question la distinction entre réalité et fiction. Cet ouvrage contribue à une meilleure compréhension des rapports de pouvoir mis en jeu dans l’autofiction, tant au niveau de la production que de la réception des œuvres. Privilégiant l’autofiction comme phénomène principalement français, cet ouvrage s’intéresse à la valeur politique de ce genre semi-autobiographique par-delà sa mort annoncée avec la disparition de la littérature engagée de l’après-guerre et des avant-gardes des années 50-60, dans le contexte français et francophone actuel, traversé par une crise des identités, le multiculturalisme et une redéfinition du nationalisme à travers l’écriture. The Personal Is Political: Media, Aesthetics and Politics in the Autofiction of Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume and Nelly Arcan Looking at questions of testimony, confession, trauma, sexuality, and violence in (semi-) autobiographical works, this book explores the co-construction of personal and collective identities by women writers in the age of self-disclosure and mass media. In a time when literature is accused of being self-centered and overly narcissistic, women’s autofiction in France since the turn of the millennium has been received with controversy because it disrupts readily accepted ideas about personal and national identities, gender and race, and fiction [/i]versus[i] autobiography. Through the study of polemical writers Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume, and Nelly Arcan, Mercédès Baillargeon contends that, by recounting personal stories of trauma and sexuality, and thus opposing themselves in opposition to social convention, and by refusing to dispel doubts regarding the fictional or factual nature of their texts, autofiction resists and helps redefine categories of literary genre and gender identity. This book analyzes concurrently the textual and sociopolitical implications that underlie the (de)construction of the autofictional subject, and particularly how these writers constantly redefine themselves through performance and self-fashioning made possible by media and technology. Moreover, this work raises important questions relating to the media’s complicated relationship with women writers, especially those who discuss themes of trauma, sexuality, and violence, and who also question the distinction between fact and fiction. Proposing a new understanding of autofiction as a form of littérature engagée, this work contributes to a broader understanding of the French publishing establishment and of the literary field as a cultural institution, as well as new insight on shifting notions of identity, the Self, and nationalism in today’s ever-changing and multicultural French context.

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Este libro intenta mostrar la representación textual de las islas Galápagos desde su descubrimiento hasta nuestros días. El argumento principal sugiere que la descripción de este espacio crucial para la modernidad, dada la retórica de los escritores de viajes y ficción, transforma el área insular para concebir formas alternativas del proyecto de construcción nacional en América Latina. Como resultado de las empresas coloniales, excursiones científicas, crónicas periodísticas o expediciones, la escritura de viaje de las Galápagos condiciona la formación del estado y su imaginario nacional. Esto ocurre por el capital simbólico que posee archipiélago y por el deseo de los intelectuales latinoamericanos de pertenecer a un territorio cosmopolita. El espacio insular funciona como un significante vacío donde los viajeros pueden comunicar su propio significado al narrar las experiencias de sus viajes. Este fenómeno crea una división conceptual y política entre la identidad de las islas y la nación ecuatoriana. Dichas ambigüedades narrativas crearon una ruptura que condujo a variaciones fundamentales en la forma en que los habitantes locales y entidades extranjeras interpretan las Galápagos hoy en día, ya que su literatura refleja una tensión particular de cara a las tendencias migratorias en las islas, así como los intereses globales que prevalecen en la apropiación del espacio.
This book, written in Spanish, takes a literary and cultural studies model to explain the textual representation of the Galápagos Islands since their discovery until present day. The main argument suggests that the depiction of this crucial space for modernity in Western thought, given the rhetoric of travel and fiction writers, transforms the insular area with the intention of conceiving disparate forms of political displacement. Specifically, these depictions show several conflicts that arose from the seeking of identity in Ecuador during the nation-building project that took place at the time. As a result of colonial enterprises (scientific excursions, exile, tourism, journalistic pieces, expeditions, etc.), travel writings of the Galápagos condition the formation of the state and its national imagery because of the extreme symbolic capital of the archipelago and the desire of Latin American intellectuals to belong to a cosmopolitan territory.

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On Emerging from Hyper-Nation represents Ronald W. Sousa’s attempt to answer the question, “Why do I smile on reading one of Saramago’s ‘historical’ novels?” Why that reaction of emotional release? To answer the “smile question” the book engages in a critical mode that could be described as “discourse analysis.” It combines several critical strains and relies on basic concepts from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Adlerian psychology, and contemporary cognitive psychology for their discourse-analytical value rather than as entrées into psychoanalytical reading per se. The introductory chapter presents some of the concepts that underlie that compound analytical modality and sets out an overview of twentieth-century Portuguese social and economic history. Then, with an eye to answering the “smile question,” the book reads Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s three novels, Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1984), and The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1989). Or, better, it seeks to read Sousa’s own reading of the three works, since focus falls on how each novel seeks to construct both its own reading and also Sousa as its reader. The discussion brings to light a number of textual phenomena that bear upon the “smile question.” Among them are that the novels invoke, often subtly, the fascist hermeneutical heritage remaining from before the revolution of 1974 as a constituent part of their communication with the reader; that they summon up historical trauma; that they function as Freudian-style “tendentious jokes”; and that, through these various invocations, they seek to constitute a postrevolutionary Portuguese subject. The reading of Sousa’s reading, then, ends up being a reading of some of the cultural forces at work in postrevolutionary Portugal.

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Voces de mujeres han sido sistemáticamente silenciado o se omite por completo cuando una nación se reúne su narrativa histórica. En Miradas Transatlánticas: El periodismo literario de Elena Poniatowska y Rosa Montero, Alicia Rita Rueda-Acedo examina la relación entre la obra periodística y literaria de los dos escritores con nombre en el título, ya que utilizan una combinación distinta del periodismo y la ficción para crear nuevos espacios donde las voces y experiencias de las mujeres pueden estar situados prominente en las narraciones históricas de sus naciones.Rueda-Acedo analiza las obras de los dos escritores desde las perspectivas de género y los estudios de género, la ampliación de la noción de género de la tradición literaria y su aplicación a la producción periodística. Cada uno de los capítulos replantea y revisa el concepto de los géneros literarios con el argumento para la inclusión de la entrevista, el reportaje, el artículo, y la crónica en la categoría de literatura. En su estudio de Las siete cabritas por Poniatowska y Historias de mujeres por Montero, Rueda-Acedo argumenta con éxito que se trata de obras de homenaje a las mujeres que han influido en la historia. Al interpretar y subvertir los modelos patriarcales, los escritores llaman la atención sobre las formas en que las mujeres se han involucrado la historia mexicana, española y universal. Rueda-Acedo se centra en las características de la entrevista periodística y propone su interpretación como un texto literario. También se propone una poética de este género.El estudio de Rueda-Acedo explora cómo Poniatowska y Montero representan a las mujeres que han marcado la historia como parte de la agenda feminista de que los dos escritores han promovido en su producción periodística y literaria. El libro también hace hincapié en el papel de los dos escritores como investigadores y críticos y profundiza el debate animado sobre la relación entre la literatura y el periodismo que se discute actualmente en ambos lados del Atlántico.

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In her book, The Closed Hand: Images of the Japanese in Modern Peruvian Literature, Rebecca Riger Tsurumi captures the remarkable story behind the changing human landscape in Peru at the end of the nineteenth century when Japanese immigrants established what would become the second largest Japanese community in South America. She analyzes how non-Japanese Peruvian narrators unlock the unspoken attitudes and beliefs about the Japanese held by mainstream Peruvian society, as reflected in works written between l966 and 2006. Tsurumi explores how these Peruvian literary giants, including Mario Vargas Llosa, Miguel Gutiérrez, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Carmen Ollé, Pilar Dughi, and Mario Bellatin, invented Japanese characters whose cultural differences fascinated and confounded their creators. She compares the outsider views of these Peruvian narrators with the insider perceptions of two Japanese Peruvian poets, José Watanabe and Doris Moromisato, who tap personal experiences and memories to create images that define their identities. The book begins with a brief sociohistorical overview of Japan and Peru, describing the conditions in both nations that resulted in Japanese immigration to Peru and concluding in contemporary times. Tsurumi traces the evolution of the terms «Orient» and «Japanese/Oriental» and the depiction of Asians in Modernista poetry and in later works by Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges. She analyzes the images of the Japanese portrayed in individual works of modern Peruvian narrative, comparing them with those created in Japanese Peruvian poetry. The book concludes with an appendix containing excerpts from Tsurumi's interviews and correspondence in Spanish with writers and poets in Lima and Mexico City.

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Lugar de Emilia Pardo Bazán en la literatura española y gallega se ha ganado duro, y ella todavía no ha recibido el reconocimiento que se merece. En Género , Nación y literatura : Emilia Pardo Bazán en la literatura gallega y española , Carmen Pereira -Muro estudia la obra y personalidad de este fascinante autor en el contexto de los nacionalismos que compiten español y gallego . Ella vuelve a leer las historias literarias y cánones nacionales de España y Galicia como narrativas patriarcales que luchan para asimilar o silenciar proyecto nacional alternativo de Pardo Bazán .
Pereira -Muro sostiene que Pardo Bazán postuló la inclusión de las mujeres en la cultura nacional como un paso clave para eludir la lógica representacional detrás de realismo y el liberalismo en el estado -nación moderno . Al insistir en que las mujeres deben ser socios iguales, Pardo Bazán adoptó problemáticamente el binarismo patriarcal que asigna a la mujer a la naturaleza y los hombres a la cultura , pero también subvierte que al negar su relación complementaria. Su elección astuta y manipulación de modelos culturales masculinos ( Realismo , no Romanticismo ; prosa, no la poesía ; lengua castellana , no gallego) en última instancia, su – a pesar de la feroz oposición ganaron inclusión en el canon nacional español . Por otra parte, el estudio de sus relaciones con espinosos emergente nacionalismo gallego muestra que su exclusión de la " literatura gallega " se debió en gran parte a su actuación transgresora género. Finalmente Pereira -Muro sostiene que en la última novela del autor, Pardo Bazán experimentó con la creación de una escritura femenina y una femenina canon para España . Sin embargo , la política de género predominantes aseguraron que sólo su producción realista (masculino ) lo hizo en el canon español , y no este último modernista escrito, ( femenino).
En conclusión , este libro cuestiona la naturalización de los cánones nacionales por el descubrimiento de las políticas de género detrás de lo que se echa determinada como natural por idiomas y geografía. Hacer esto también expone a las restricciones de género paralelas en el trabajo detrás aparentemente opuestos central ( español ) y ( Galicia ) proyectos nacionales periféricos.

Emilia Pardo Bazan's place in Spanish and Galician literatures has been hard won, and she has yet to receive the recognition she deserves. In Género, nación y literatura: Emilia Pardo Bazán en la literatura gallega y española, Carmen Pereira-Muro studies the work and persona of this fascinating author in the context of Spanish and Galician competing nationalisms. She re-reads the literary histories and national canons of Spain and Galicia as patriarchal master narratives that struggle to assimilate or silence Pardo Bazán's alternative national project. Pereira-Muro argues that Pardo Bazán posited the inclusion of women in the national culture as a key step in circumventing the representational logic behind Realism and Liberalism in the modern nation-state. By insisting that women should be equal partners, Pardo Bazán problematically adopted the patriarchal binarism that assigns women to Nature and men to Culture, but she also subverted it by denying its supplemental relationship. Her astute choice and manipulation of masculine cultural models (Realism, not Romanticism; prose, not poetry; Castilian language, not Galician) ultimately won her-despite fierce opposition-inclusion in the Spanish national canon. Furthermore, the study of her thorny relations with emerging Galician nationalism shows that her exclusion from «Galician literature» was due largely to her transgressive gender performance. Finally Pereira-Muro contends that in the author's last novel, Pardo Bazán experimented with creating a feminine writing and a feminine canon for Spain. Nevertheless, the prevailing gender politics ensured that only her realist (masculine) production made it into the Spanish canon, and not this last, modernist (feminine) writing. In conclusion, this book questions the naturalization of national canons by uncovering the gender politics behind what is cast as naturally determined by language and geography. Doing this also exposes the parallel gender strictures at work behind seemingly opposed central (Spanish) and peripheral (Galician) national projects.

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In the mid-1800s, tens of thousands of Chinese workers migrated to Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and Panama in search of a better life. As they and their descendants assimilated into their new host countries, they contributed significantly to the economies of these countries through their work in agriculture, transportation, and other industries. However, through the years and throughout their work and assimilation, they also made distinguished literary, artistic, religious, and political contributions to the cultural heritage of the region.In this seminal in-depth study of the Chinese-Latin American literary tradition, Huei Lan Yen examines how first-and second-generation Latin American writers of Chinese and mixed-race Chinese descent relied upon literature to reconstruct, reevaluate, and renegotiate their cultural identities. Yen then argues that it is through the lens of their literary output that we can best understand the intricacies and tensions of the East-West transculturation process of nineteenth-century Latin America.Prior studies have treated Chinese-Latin Americans as characters. However, this is the first sustained study of the work of Chinese-Latin American authors. Explicating the unique interplay of aspects of Chinese culture, such as Confucianism and Taoism, with dominant Latin American cultures, Yen reveals Chinese-Latin American literature as having an aesthetically complex and sophisticated tradition with a specific cultural flavor of its own.

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This book is the first full-length study to examine Molière’s evolving (and at times contradictory) authorial strategies, as evidenced both by his portrayal of authors and publication within the plays and by his own interactions with the seventeenth-century Parisian publishing industry. Historians of the book have described the time period that coincides with Molière’s theatrical activity as centrally important to the development of authors’ rights and to the professionalization of the literary field. A seventeenth-century author, however, was not so much born as negotiated through often acrimonious relations in a world of new and dizzying possibilities.The learning curve was at times steep and unpleasant, as Molière discovered when his first Parisian play was stolen by a rogue publisher. Nevertheless, the dramatist proved to be a quick learner; from his first published play in 1660 until his death in 1673, Molière changed from a reluctant and victimized author to an innovator (or, according to his enemies, even a swindler) who aggressively secured the rights to his plays, stealing them back when necessary. Through such shrewdness, he acquired for himself publication privileges and conditions relatively unknown in an era before copyright.As Molière himself wrote, making people laugh was “une étrange entreprise” (La Critique de L’École des femmes, 1663). To an even greater degree, comedic authorship for the playwright was a constant work in progress, and in this sense, “Molière,” the stage name that became a pen name, represents the most carefully elaborated of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin’s invented characters.

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The importance of fashion in the construction and representation of gender and the formation of modern society in nineteenth-century Spanish narrative is the focus of Dorota Heneghan's Striking Their Modern Pose. The study moves beyond traditional interpretations that equate female passion for finery with symptoms of social ambition and the decline of the Spanish nation, and brings to light the manners in which nineteenth-century Spanish novelists drew attention to the connection between the complexities of fashionable female protagonists and the shifting limits of conventional womanhood to address the need to reformulate customary ideals of gender as a necessary condition for Spain to advance in the process of modernization. The project also sheds light on an area largely unexplored by previous studies: men's pursuit of fashion. Through the analysis of the richness of sartorial subtleties in Benito Pérez Galdós's and Emilia Pardo Bazán's portraits of their male characters, this book brings forward these writers' exposure of the much-denied bourgeois men's love for self-adornment and the incoherencies and contradictions in the allegedly monolithic, stable concept of nineteenth-century Spanish masculinity. While highlighting the ways in which the art of dressing smartly provided nineteenth-century Spanish novelists with effective means to voice their critique of conventional gender order, the book also lends insight into these authors' methods of manipulating sartorial signs to explore and to envision (as in the case of Pardo Bazán and Jacinto Octavio Picón) alternative models of masculinity and femininity. Threading through all chapters of the study is the idea propagated by all three of these writers that Spain's full integration into modernity required not only the redefinition of the feminine role, but the reconfiguration of the masculine one as well.

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